The Gladdest Thing Under the Sun
by sunflower-ducks
Summary: "Try it on for size, Capsicle. I think you'd look good in purple." When Tony winked at him, Steve got the distinct impression he was missing something. [One-shot.]


**A/N:** To think this story was supposed to go up in June. Oh, well, better late than never, right?

**Disclaimer:** This is a work of fiction using characters from Marvel Comics. I do not claim ownership of these characters or the universe they inhabit. This story is written purely to entertain and is not intended to be read as canon. I make no profit from this story. All rights to their respective owners.

* * *

**The Gladdest Thing Under the Sun**

Purple, Steve thought as he added another squirt of red to the bluish splotch on his palette, was a hell of a color.

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden was packed on a cool Saturday afternoon. In early April, the trees at the Cherry Esplanade were just shedding the last of their flowers, and the discarded cherry blossoms carpeted the grass like soft pink snowfall. Those few minutes on Cherry Walk, it had been like Steve was eleven years old again, his mother gently pulling him along as they both craned their necks this way and that to marvel at the shower of radiant blooms. His allergies had been going absolutely haywire that day, but he hadn't cared, begging Mom to stay even as she grew concerned about his asthma and insisted they head home.

Even ignoring the seventy-year-long nap, that day felt like so long ago.

Ultimately, though, Cherry Walk had been too crowded for him, and he'd moved on with his easel tucked under one arm to a more isolated area of the garden. Now he stood in front of a cluster of violets trying his hand at a still life, but the canvas remained blank as he battled with his paints to produce just the right shade of purple. His eyes flicked back and forth—palette, petals, palette, petals—and he sighed in frustration. Still too blue.

A few squirts more and he was content to say he'd found the perfect shade (he was _not_ throwing his proverbial hands in the air and giving up; no, sir, not at all). With careful, steady strokes that looked much more effortless than they felt, he began committing the violets to paper—the leaves shaped like serrated hearts and the little ants roaming the stems. In patches of sunlight, the petals took on a reddish tint; then, cast back into the shadows by the breeze, they edged closer to dark blue. Purple, he thought absently, completely lost in the activity. A hell of a color.

Violets always made him think of Peggy. Once, he'd watched her hand one off to a woman with coiffured blonde hair; the two had exchanged words, but from a distance he hadn't been privy to them, their painted lips forming silent shapes and smiles. The blonde woman had leaned in, pecked Peggy on the cheek, and walked away, violet in hand, and when Peggy had turned and Steve got a good look at her face, her cheeks were positively aflame. The memory was striking for that reason alone—it was the only time he'd ever seen the cool, unflappable Agent Carter _flustered_.

He'd asked her about it later. "So, what's with the flower?" he'd said, a little teasingly, realizing only belatedly she may think he'd been spying on her.

But Peggy had only gazed at him, intense dark eyes searching, and then she'd smiled enigmatically, making Steve wonder if he was in trouble after all. "Oh," she'd said, in a voice so innocent it had to be an act, "you know… _girls' stuff_." Her eyes widened on those last words, teasing him back, and Steve's confusion must have showed on his face, because her mysterious smile broke into a full-blown grin. The tables had been turned. He was still internally debating whether or not he should ask her to clarify—_girls' stuff_ kind of sounded like something he wasn't supposed to know about—when she'd marched off, the perfect soldier but for the amusement still sparkling in her eyes.

It was only a short while later, in London, that he'd learned that blonde woman had a name: Lorraine. She was a private in the Army, Colonel Phillips's secretary, and she was one hell of a kisser. More than the memory of his teeth scraping her tongue and her hands tugging on his tie, though, Steve vividly recalled Peggy's anger—the oddly personal hostility in the glare she'd leveled at Lorraine and the disgust in her voice when she'd told him: _"You still don't know a bloody thing about women."_

The argument was long over, and he and Peggy had more than made up after it, but Steve still winced whenever he recalled the venom in her beautiful voice and what a ginormous bonehead he'd been. Concentration broken, he blinked in a familiar bit of bewilderment at the canvas, which now depicted a quartet of violets bowed as though in deference. He eyed the transition of their yellow-white centers to their royal-purple petals critically, thought to himself he didn't do such a great job capturing the flowers' texture, but the deed was done. All in all, not the worst work he'd ever produced. He glanced at his watch: nearly 16:30. Time to head home.

**oOo**

After dropping his painting, easel, and art supplies off on his floor of the tower, Steve decided to head down to the communal floor to see what the others were up to. The plan was for the Avengers to have dinner together tonight, but the last time they'd tried that, Tony holed up in his lab to work on God only knew what; Clint got called off on a mission for SHIELD; and Natasha _said_ she had a mission for SHIELD, but Steve was certain she was lying. He, Thor, and Bruce were all abysmal cooks (though Bruce did make a mean curry, and Thor could at least handle eggs), so they ended up ordering out, and the hour or so they spent together was pleasant but awkward for the knowledge of how many of them were missing.

Well, not this time. Steve would drag them all in by their ears if he had to.

He'd barely stepped off the elevator when something came flying at his face; instinctively, he batted it away, heart speeding to a gallop. He assessed it fleetingly—a shiny purple puddle of something, _not a threat_—then looked at the person who had thrown it. It was Tony, with his eyebrows pushed up to where his red sunglasses rested on his hairline and a sarcastic expression on his face.

"Is this how you accept all presents, or is it just 'cause it's from me?"

"What are you doing?" Steve retorted shortly, looking at the purple puddle again. Cautiously, he went and picked it up; it was soft and slippery in his hands. A button-up shirt, he realized as he held it up for inspection, made of silk or some such material. He quirked his eyebrows. "What's this?"

"It's a shirt," Tony said. Steve's lips thinned in irritation, his heart still going a tad too fast. _Obviously_ it was a shirt. "You wear it, y'know, on your body. Found it in my closet. Designer—Neiman Marcus, I think." He spoke so quickly it nearly gave Steve a headache. "Try it on for size, Capsicle. I think you'd look good in purple."

When Tony winked at him, Steve got the distinct impression he was missing something. "Wh—" he started as his stomach did an odd little flip, not even sure what he wanted to say, but then Tony brushed past him and called for the elevator.

"Hey, you tell me how that fits later, okay?" he tossed over his shoulder. "I gotta go, I got a date. He's pretty hot, wouldn't wanna miss him. See ya tonight, maybe, I dunno."

Abruptly forgetting the events of the past few moments, Steve pivoted on his heel and glared sternly at Tony, who stepped into the elevator. "Tony, I want you back in time for dinner tonight. You're not skipping out like you did last time."

Tony rolled his eyes, but it wasn't as caustic as it could have been. "Yes, dear," he intoned dutifully, then flipped his shades down over his eyes, grinned, and waved jauntily as the elevator doors closed, leaving Steve alone on the communal floor.

_Yes, dear_, he mimicked silently, and felt his stomach flip again. He looked down at the shirt, momentarily admiring the nearly electric shade of purple, running the incredibly smooth fabric through his fingers. It _was_ pretty nice…

Oh, to hell with it. Steve rolled his eyes, too, and went to find a bathroom to change in.

**oOo**

The shirt fit perfectly, which bothered Steve maybe more than it should have, because why the hell did Tony have something this big just lying around? It certainly wasn't a pajama shirt or something to lounge around in; it was high quality and undoubtedly expensive. If not for the fact that it would have been ridiculous to be paranoid over this, Steve would be expecting some sort of elaborate punchline. Hell, knowing Tony, an elaborate punchline was still entirely possible. God, that man was exhausting sometimes.

Nevertheless, he decided to wear it to dinner. It was pretty comfy, and Tony _had_ said he wanted to know how it fit.

But when he got to the kitchen on the communal floor, Tony wasn't there. Everyone else was, surprisingly: Bruce pouring himself a glass of water from a big pitcher; Thor quaffing coffee from a mug, hopefully not about to smash anything; Natasha tucked into a plate of fettuccine alfredo, mouth stuffed full; Clint standing at the stove over a steaming skillet of veggies, sifting through them with a spatula. He glanced over his shoulder as Steve entered, then turned back to his cooking.

" 'Sup, Cap," he said. "Nice shirt. Pasta's already done, vegetables in a minute. Help yourself." Without looking at her: "Nat, save some room for your damn broccoli." Natasha quickly pressed a hand to her mouth, finished chewing, and swallowed. She smirked at Steve, who shook his head at her half seriously, and offered a little shrug.

"Good evening, Captain!" Thor greeted jovially with a broad wave.

"Thor," Steve greeted back with a nod, surveying the kitchen warily. "Where's Tony?"

"Oh," Bruce mumbled. "He said he had some work to do in his lab." He looked at Steve apologetically, chin tucked close to his chest and shoulders up by his ears as though he expected to be reprimanded.

Steve took a deep breath and exhaled it through his nose, trying to keep a lid on his frustration so Bruce wouldn't think it was directed at him. So Tony had gotten home in time for dinner like he'd asked, then decided not to show? "Of course he did," he said tightly. "I'll be right back."

Once in the elevator going up, he allowed himself to scowl. "JARVIS," he ordered, glowering at the ceiling, "what exactly is Tony doing in his lab that's so important he can't even come down to dinner? This is the second time he's bounced in as many weeks. There's a reason we try to spend time together every once in a while, you know—so we're not constantly at each other's throats the rest of the time?"

"_He's making modifications to the Mark VII, Captain Rogers. For what it's worth, I do understand the importance of the Avengers maintaining friendly relations with one another. As such, I _did_ try to convince Sir to honor his promise to show up._"

Despite his irritation, Steve couldn't help the wry smile that flitted across his face. He could picture quite clearly how _that_ conversation had gone down. He widened his eyes innocently. "And it didn't work?"

"_I, too, am surprised_," JARVIS said, and Steve laughed, anger dissipating. Yes, Tony certainly _was_ exhausting at times.

"Listen, JARVIS, I know I don't typically have access to Tony's super-secret science lab, but—"

"_Say no more, Captain_," JARVIS interjected. "_Sir has indicated to me that he has not eaten today. If this is true, then he has not eaten anything at all within the past two days. I shall grant you access to Sir's labs, and you shall drag him down to dinner by the ears if you must._"

Steve felt a big, devious grin slowly overtake him. "JARVIS, you read my mind."

When Steve stepped off the elevator, it was into a sea of floating holograms, lazily drifting and spinning around the island of a man in the center. Their pale blue aura bathed Tony's face in a ghostly glow, turning the deep concentration etched there into something ethereal, and without his notice, Steve's determined march slowed to an entranced walk. He was fascinated. He'd seen the manic energy of Tony post–lab binge, the spark of scientific excitement in his eyes that belied the half-moon bruises beneath them. He'd seen the enthusiastic flailing of Tony's hands as he chattered with Bruce, reeling off complex theorems and equations Steve couldn't even name, much less understand. He'd seen the empty coffee cups and hopelessly wrinkled shirts and unbrushed hair that signified Tony was on the edge of some technological breakthrough. But even with all of that, he'd never had the opportunity to see Tony in the _moment_ of invention and innovation, electric-bright mind completely engaged and intense dark eyes sharp as knives. He hadn't expected the sight to be so… calm. Peaceful, even, with the holograms slowly turning around him like strangely shaped planets orbiting a star.

Steve was suddenly struck by a thought—_I want to paint him like this_—and it was so unexpected that it startled him right out of his reverie.

"Tony," he barked, more harshly than he'd intended.

Tony nearly jumped out of his skin; the jerking motion of his hands sent the closest holograms to him spinning away, and he sighed noisily in exasperation. His chest expanded with breath as he prepared to snap at whoever had waltzed into his lab, but when he saw Steve, he stopped short. His expression froze for an instant, eyebrows scrunched and lips parted, and then he gave a crooked smile and said, "It fits."

Steve blinked, taken aback. "What? Oh." He looked down at himself, at the silk gleaming in the spectral light of the holograms. "Yeah. Thank you. Actually, about that—" he met Tony's eyes again, glad to have been reminded of his earlier question, "—why exactly did you have something like this just lying around? It certainly wouldn't fit _you_."

"Hey, making fun of my size there, Spangles?" Tony asked with feigned hurt. His grin had a lascivious lilt to it, and Steve felt his stomach squirm, half pain and half pleasure. He got this feeling around Tony sometimes, and the strange flipping sensation of earlier, but he'd never been able to puzzle out why. He didn't like it, or so he told himself at night. "It must've been left behind by someone."

"Someone?"

"Yeah. You know. _Someone_." It was definitely more than a lilt now. _Squirm_.

Steve had already known this: that it wasn't just women Tony counted as notches on his bedpost. He'd heard Tony talk about other men—strangers, usually, picked up in some bar or at some Stark Industries soirée—in a decidedly more-than-friendly tone too often _not_ to know. And Steve himself had never had any problem with people like Tony—had, in fact, thought the problem many of his contemporaries had with them was silly, unwarranted, _unfair_—but suddenly the thought of Tony peeling this silky purple button-up off of some other _man_ was…

"Be decent, Tony," he said, but his voice—his heart—wasn't in it. He felt almost shaky all of a sudden, imagining that. Shaky and dejected. And pissed off.

"Aw, but where's the fun in that?" Tony's thousand-watt smile made the glowing, pulsing holograms flanking him look almost comically dull. "But hey, I was right, wasn't I? The purple looks good on you."

Steve breathed as deeply as he could without giving himself away. On the exhale, he tried for a smile himself, but he could feel how it wavered at the edges, and he knew it looked as uncertain as it felt. "Yeah, well… I've always been more of a blue guy myself," he said, trying to sound breezy.

Tony shook his head. "Red and blue," he insisted. "Makes purple. You always had it in you, Captain."

Steve got the weirdest feeling they weren't talking about colors anymore. He didn't know how to respond, only knew that his mouth was dry as summer heat and his fingers were trembling with what felt too much like adrenaline, just little enough to remain invisible to the untrained eye. Tony was untrained, as untrained as they came, yet something told Steve he'd be able to spot that tremor anyway, and he fought the urge to hide his hands behind his back, feeling bizarrely exposed.

Finally he remembered what he'd come up here for in the first place. "You promised you'd be at dinner, Tony," he said, and tried to clear his throat as subtly as possible afterwards.

Tony was quiet for a moment that felt like it stretched into eternity in the unusual absence of his voice. "That I did," he acquiesced at last, the flippancy of his tone mismatched by the solemnity in his eyes. "Guess I just lost track of time up here. You know how it is—" he gestured vaguely, "—with your drawing and all."

Unexpectedly, Steve's face heated at the notion of Tony paying any sort of attention to his drawing. It was a notion that had never bothered him before, but with all their talk of _colors_…

"I do know," he said after a difficult swallow. "But you promised, and"—_lightbulb_, a path back to normalcy—"JARVIS said you haven't eaten in two days."

Tony glared over Steve's shoulder at nothing in particular. "Traitor," he accused sulkily.

"_Just looking out for your well-being, sir._"

Tony opened his mouth to fire back, but Steve pushed ahead with his next thought before he could lose his nerve. "Thought you said you had a date." _With a he_, he didn't add aloud, confused by his own fixation on the idea. "Whatever happened to that? I figured you would've stopped to eat somewhere. You know… together."

"Oh, that." Tony sighed, not sounding overly upset, and shook his head. He pulled a hand through his hair, making it stick out all over the place; Steve watched the motion very closely. "Didn't pan out," he said simply, and seemed disinclined to explain much further.

A surprising feeling of buoyancy ballooned in Steve's chest at that, swallowing some of the nerves of before and converting them into a satisfied sort of confidence. "Oh, alright," he said, trying not to sound too happy. "Well, in that case"—his smile came much more easily this time—"why don't you come down and have some pasta? Whole gang's waiting, you know. And you _did_ promise me." _Me_, he thought, without knowing why.

Tony glanced at the lab-spanning sea of holograms, lips pursed. There was that knife's edge in his eyes again, a brief contemplation that put all the rapidly working gears in his head on full display. The seriousness of the expression was ruined by his crazy Einstein hair, though, and Steve felt a powerful surge of affection for him in that moment as he tried not to laugh. Finally Tony said, "Yeah, alright, I'm pretty much done here for now anyways." He turned back to Steve and let go that luminescent grin of his again; Steve wondered momentarily at what a good mood Tony seemed in tonight, and before he knew it, the thought had him smiling back.

**oOo**

That night, Steve lay awake far into the earliest hours, gazing at the shadowed ceiling and listening to the ever-present cacophony of New York dozens of stories below. His thoughts were consumed by the image of Tony, basking in the holograms' blue light; Tony, red-faced with laughter during dinner over some lewd joke made by Clint and Natasha's swift retribution; Tony, telling him the purple suited him, eyes running up and down the length of his torso, searching for something and apparently very satisfied with whatever they found.

A few months ago, Steve would have been bewildered and unnerved by Tony unknowingly (_Unknowingly?_) hijacking his brain. Hell, a few months ago, he _was_ both of those things. But in the days and weeks and months following the invasion, when he'd gotten a new glimpse of Tony in the same breath he'd—_they'd_—nearly lost him (_"Please tell me nobody kissed me."_), this had been happening more and more, this nighttime rumination on a man who seemed determined to drive him crazy, and now it was practically part of his routine. He supposed it wasn't that unusual: Tony was a special kind of infuriating, after all, blowing up tech equipment and acting like the resulting burns were all in good fun, promising to come to dinner and then making Steve fetch him like a wife minding her husband in decades past, throwing old conquests in Steve's face—old conquests' _shirts_, that is. Tony, Tony, Tony.

No, these nocturnal thoughts of him weren't unexpected at all.

It did mess with his sleep schedule, though, and one of the best ways Steve knew to purge this kind of unruly emotion (_Emotion?_) and get his head back on straight was art. That's why he'd gone to the botanic garden earlier, why he'd beelined straight for the violets that reminded him so much of Peggy.

_Peggy and her girls' stuff_, he brooded distantly, and _I wonder if there's such a thing as boys' stuff_, but that thought he shoved back into the dark as soon as it emerged, disturbed.

Peggy and Tony and intense dark eyes, searching.

Steve used to lie awake at night thinking of her like this, too. Only that had been different. His thoughts of Peggy had been because he loved her. Tony was just… a hell of a personality. That was it.

In the near-total blackness of his room at three in the morning, he turned over and directed his gaze where he knew his painting of the violets rested against the wall. He looked long and hard, and eventually the canvas's white edges floated into view. He thought he could see the dark amorphous shape of the violets sprouting up, too, but maybe that was just his imagination filling in the gaps. He thought of the color purple, and the way that shirt had felt against his skin (_"You wear it, y'know, on your body."_), and the way it had felt to have Tony looking at him with it on. _"It fits."_

_Ugh_. Were thoughts of Tony unexpected? No. Were they mind-breakingly confusing and frustrating? Absolutely. Had anyone been around to hear it, he'd have denied snarling like a wild animal as he ripped off his blanket and slammed to his feet. If making art was one of the best ways he knew to clear his head, destroying a dozen punching bags in the gym was almost as good.

**oOo**

"Iron Man should totally have a float. Come on, you know I'm right."

"I'm not arguing with that."

It _sounded_ like they were arguing. Then again, Tony and Pepper almost always sounded like they were arguing, and more often than not it was just snappy, lighthearted banter. When Steve had first met Pepper, he'd thought she was the sensibility to Tony's… well, severe lack thereof, but as it turned out, the two of them operated on basically the same wavelength; it was just that Pepper was better at reigning herself in. Which _did_ make them pretty entertaining to watch at times, he'd admit.

"What kind of float are we talking about here?" Steve asked as he entered the kitchen, pulling a bottle of water from the fridge. He was getting ready to head out for his daily run; normally he'd have finished it by now, but after committing violent crimes against no less than four punching bags, he'd collapsed into bed and into a blessedly dreamless sleep for several hours past his usual wake-up time. He was still tired, but not as exhausted as he'd been before, so hallelujah on that.

"Pride float," Tony said. He took an aggressive pull from the can of Pepsi in his hand, a solution Pepper had enforced to curb the worst of his pre-noon drinking habits. Privately, Steve thought it was a good idea, but he knew it wasn't his place to say so.

In any case, that was a non-answer at best. Steve looked at Pepper and raised his eyebrows in questioning.

"For this year's Pride March," she explained, giving Tony her patented "you're a handful and a half, but I love you" side-eye. Something in Steve's chest constricted painfully at the sight of it.

"Ah" was all he said when he felt comfortable speaking again. The concept of the Pride March—actually, the concept of Pride _anything_—was still pretty new to him; there'd been nothing of the sort back in the '40s. He thought it was wonderful, exactly the sort of thing Captain America stood for: the freedom to be yourself, to bare the most intimate parts of your being, without needing to fear that doing so would bring your entire life crashing down around you. That was a message that resonated with Steve Rogers, too, and he wished there had been something like Pride Month back when he was a kid. Would've been risky as all hell, of course, but who was to say it wasn't still risky in this day and age? And what kind of life could someone possibly lead when they were too afraid to be themself out in the open?

Tony certainly wasn't afraid of that. Actually, Tony could stand to be a little _more_ afraid of that, Steve thought with an amused smirk, watching as Tony and Pepper returned to their good-natured bickering. He was only joking, of course. For all that he got on Tony's case sometimes, both to the man himself and in the privacy of his own head, Steve really did like him. In the year since the formation of the Avengers, they'd certainly had their differences, but they weren't as incompatible as they often seemed. Tony was brilliant, Steve knew; and even though his sense of humor could be grating at times, he truly _was_ a funny guy, had made Steve laugh more than anyone else in the tower by far; and those rare moments that he managed to catch Tony in a moment of quietude, staring out at the Manhattan twilight with a tumbler in hand or totally absorbed in a state of scientific creativity…

Steve shook himself a little.

Well.

Those moments were always nice, to say the least.

"Yo, Purple Mountain Majesties," Tony called. Steve started a little, realizing Tony had been trying to speak to him for some time.

"Sorry," he said automatically, worried by his own lately increasing absentmindedness. "Zoned out for a second there. What were you saying?"

Tony's smirk looked a little off: it wasn't as taunting as it usually was, but softer around the edges, almost fond. Laughing with Steve rather than at him. It was such a tiny change in presentation, but it transformed Tony's face profoundly, sapping away the arrogance that often tightened his features and replacing it with a warm, open amiability. His incredibly dark eyes sparkled with the expression.

Suddenly, he said, "You still didn't hear me, did you?"

"Are you feeling alright, Steve?" Pepper asked, brow creased in maternal concern.

Steve wished the ground would just open up and swallow him whole. His cheeks tingled sharply as they warmed, and he hoped to God the blush wasn't as obvious to either of them as it was to him. "I'm really sorry, Tony," he said, "I'm just… tired today. Give me one more chance?"

That pleasant smirk again, so wide it was nearly a smile this time. "No need to be so _dramatic_, Captain. I was just saying that if Iron Man gets a float—which he _should_," this directed at Pepper, who merely rolled her eyes and shook her head a little, "—then Captain America should get one, too. Whaddaya say?"

Steve's hand clenched spasmodically around his water bottle; the crinkle of the plastic seemed unusually loud against the kitchen tile. If any of that water had been in his mouth, he'd have choked. "What…"

"Come on," Tony said, "it'll be fun. Shit, you've already got the color scheme down with your uniform."

"_Tony_!" Pepper admonished in nearly a whisper. Twice in as many days, Steve got the feeling he was missing something.

He hadn't so much as seen last year's Pride March, too busy assisting the Manhattan clean-up efforts in the wake of the Chitauri invasion. Tony had gone—with Natasha, actually—and though he didn't have a float, he nevertheless came home absolutely giddy, trailing glitter in every color of the rainbow with stripes of pink, purple, and blue painted on both cheeks. He'd been like a little kid in a candy shop, all big grins and lit-up eyes, and Natasha had been happy, too, Steve recalled: a more subdued happiness that was obvious in her feline smile and the confident way she moved.

His third trance of the morning broken, Steve finally found his voice. "What exactly are you asking me?" he said cautiously.

"Isn't it obvious? I want you to go to Pride with me, dummy."

Pepper gave a grand roll of her eyes and mouthed _I am so sorry_ behind Tony's back.

"I…" Steve had never been more confused in his entire life. "I—s-sure, why not?" He thought of the flags that had been painted on Tony's cheeks and shook his head. "But Tony, I'm not—"

"Awesome!" Tony interrupted jubilantly. "And hey, no worries, El Capitan. I'm sure you'll fit in just fine. You get the picture."

No, Steve did not get the picture. Tony was doing that thing where he talked so quickly it made Steve's head hurt. He was starting to wonder if Tony didn't do it on purpose as a way of overwhelming his opponents with the sheer force of his personality. Was Steve Tony's opponent? What the hell was even happening right now?

"I…" he said slowly, head spinning. "I'm gonna go for my run now."

"Okay," Tony agreed easily. "Have fun. I'm gonna stay here and try to get us those floats."

"Tony," Pepper began in a lecturing tone, "you know registration for the floats ended back in March—"

"Yeah, but I'm Tony Stark, I do what I want."

"Oh, my God—"

Steve turned around and left. He felt numb all the way down to the ground floor, all the way outside, all the way to Central Park, and feeling didn't return until he was nearly halfway through his run. At which point he had only one thought to sustain his sanity:

_What the fuck just happened?_

**oOo**

April marched on, the days slowly lengthening under an endless curtain of rain. Steve had been going out of his way to avoid Tony for a little while: spending more time in the gym, working himself to the bone; camping out on his floor, which he'd asked JARVIS to lock to everyone but himself except in emergencies; going out to coffee shops and little bistros and parks with perpetually soggy grass, to sit and draw whatever his eyes happened to light upon, taking his anxiety out on his pencils and pens. He felt bad about it, but the thought of confronting Tony made his stomach churn with restless butterflies, and so he remained in hiding, thanking God the Avengers hadn't been called on lately and feeling like a coward.

He didn't know why he was in such a tizzy over this whole… Pride thing. It was one thing to be excited, but _nervous_? Nervous about _what_? He had no reason to be nervous, not a single one. He doubted Tony had gotten them floats, so it wasn't like he'd have to put on a show for the crowd or anything, not that he lacked experience in that area. It would just be the two of them, walking amongst the noise and the rabble, enjoying the festivities the same as anyone else. There was no reason to be so wound up about it all.

It wasn't just Pride, though, really. It was Tony's comment about his uniform, about fitting in. Steve still had a lot of learning to do before he was all caught up with the twenty-first century, but he wasn't stupid or ignorant. He knew what the colors sported by Captain America meant in Tony's world—and it sure as hell wasn't the American flag.

But although Steve had no problem with people like Tony, he wasn't one of them. He couldn't be. It was women who'd always caught his interest, women who did still. He noticed their beauty, the ways they walked and talked, their little quirks and idiosyncrasies, the times they smiled and the times they frowned. It just wasn't the same with men. Was it? He didn't notice any of those things on a man.

Well… except for Tony. And…

And Bucky, too, he supposed.

Bucky. Steve's chest tightened with a familiar, potent misery. He always felt breathless whenever he thought of his old friend, and he knew part of that was pain, a horrid cocktail of grief and guilt and self-loathing—but was there something else to it as well? Something he'd been ignoring all these years?

Memories jumped out at him with stellar clarity, as though out of an obscuring fog.

Bucky with a toothpick dangling from the corner of his mouth, hanging in there by little more than a thread of spit, until Steve couldn't stop staring, until he wanted to do something about it (something he couldn't admit even to himself).

Bucky, swaggering towards him after saving him from yet another ass-kicking in yet another dark alley, grinning like a fox, like he knew everything there was in the world to know (and for all that Steve told him he was taking all the stupid with him, he didn't doubt it back in those days).

Bucky, teasing him about the three and a half million women in New York—_"Good thing I took care of that,"_ in response to Steve's comment about settling (and it worked out just fine that way, but technically, Steve never said the one he'd settle for was a woman).

But the one he settled for _had_ to be a woman. And it had been, eventually. Peggy—gorgeous, lovely, attractive Peggy. It wasn't like there was a second option. He couldn't like _both_.

Part of him wondered _why not?_ but Steve shut that part of him down real quick. _Because_, that was why. Liking both wasn't sustainable anyway—eventually, he'd have to pick one, and he'd made his choice long ago, before he'd even realized there was one to be made. He liked women. That was it. Tony and Bucky… they were just really good friends of his. He liked them a lot—loved them, even—but not… not like that.

He was holed up on his floor at the moment, curled up on a cushy window seat in the living room that looked decades more antiquated than anything else that could be found in Avengers Tower. Off in the distance, the Hudson gleamed dully under the pale, metallic light of an overcast sky. Billowing feather-gray clouds blanketed the atmosphere, threatening at any moment to unleash another torrent of rain upon the inhabitants of New York. Steve could see—far, far below—that many of them already had their umbrellas out, a steadily moving stream of rainbow-hued canvases on either side of the busy street. He wondered, in between stubborn thoughts of Bucky, how many of them were planning on attending the Pride March.

Bucky, admonishing him for ditching their double date, for ditching _him_, when being left alone with two beautiful girls should have been the highlight of his night (or so all the books and movies said).

Bucky with his arms wrapped tight around Steve's matchstick body as they said what they believed was their last goodbye (close, boys, but not quite).

Bucky, intense dark eyes close as he called Steve a punk.

And Steve's response, quiet for how he missed Bucky already, quiet with a keening sort of longing that made him feel like he was going to shatter under its strength and never be able to find all the pieces, had been—

"_Captain Rogers_," JARVIS cut in, "_I apologize for the interruption, but Sir has overridden your request that I allow no one else onto this floor._"

"What?" Steve shot to his feet, casting about for somewhere to go. "Why is he—"

The elevator doors opened with little more than a pleasant ding, but Steve felt as though Tony had burst into the room, dramatic fanfare and all. He stood frozen, heart going like a racehorse, and had the grim realization that at last it was time to face the music.

"Hey," Tony drawled in thoughtfulness as he skirted casually around antique furniture, coming closer, "I remember _you_. It's been about seven years, but I definitely know you from somewhere. Have we officially met? Tony Stark, pleasure to make your acquaintance." He held out his hand for a shake.

Steve thought he should make some excuse, explain away his disappearance as quickly as possible, but all that came out was "Tony."

A few moments more and Tony's hand dropped to his side. Something about the movement seemed a little dejected. "Seriously, where have you been? I haven't seen you in days."

Despite himself, Steve laughed, a little breathlessly. "Funny," he said. "Doesn't this conversation usually happen the other way around?"

Tony's eyebrows shot up; his mouth popped open into a little 'o' of surprise, and there was something so innocent about the expression that Steve's chest loosened considerably. Slowly, Tony smiled back. "You know what? You're right, Cap. Hey, first time for everything, am I right? Next thing you know, I'll be dragging you down to dinner when all you want is to be left alone with your sketchbooks."

"And next thing _you_ know," Steve shot back, smirking, "I'll be making promises to show up somewhere and then breaking them to get a little more time with my paintbrushes in."

Tony put his hands up. "Alright, truce." He sobered then. "You've been avoiding me," he said, an edge of accusation in his voice.

"No," Steve said automatically, guilt gnawing at him. "No, I… just wanted some alone time."

"Some alone time." In another voice, the words would have sounded disbelieving, even angry, but Tony didn't seem nearly as suspicious as Steve had expected him to. "Okay. I get that. Well, you got everything all sorted out now?"

_No_, Steve thought; God, no. But looking at the well-concealed hope in Tony's expression, he said, "Yeah. I'm good now."

"Great." Tony's lighthearted expression was strained; it didn't last long, falling into something uncharacteristically somber-looking. "Listen…" he said, sounding reluctant. "I wanted to apologize."

What? "What?"

"Oh, God, don't make me say it again," Tony whined, scrunching up his face. "I _wanted_ to _apologize_. I guess I came on pretty strong and freaked you out with the whole Pride thing—"

"What? No, Tony, this isn't about that—"

"—and, you know, I get it, I really do. So: I wanna make it up to you."

Steve came up short against that. Make it up to him? "Tony," he said, and had to wet his lips. Tony's eyes flicked down to the motion, something Steve didn't miss. "You don't have to do that. It's fine, really, I was just… surprised, is all."

"Yeah, no kidding," said Tony in a _duh_ tone of voice. "But I _want_ to make it up to you, so—"

"Tony—"

"Oh, come _on_." Steve's mouth snapped shut at the annoyed quality of Tony's voice. "For God's sake, Steve, just let me take you out somewhere. We can go for lunch, anywhere you like, my treat. All-you-can-eat buffet? The most expensive restaurant in New York City? You name it, we're there."

Steve searched Tony's face for the punchline and didn't find it. He was earnest. And—_He called me Steve for once_, he thought, almost stupidly giddy about it. "Is this a date?" he asked. It had been meant to sound like a joke, but it didn't.

Tony tipped his head this way and that. "If you want it to be," he said at last.

Steve was quiet for a long moment. "Okay, then. It's a date," and he didn't even try to make it sound like a joke.

Tony beamed, that megawatt grin. "It's a date. I promise I'll take you out on lots as long as you don't go all Houdini and disappear on me again."

This man was absolutely ridiculous. "Jerk," Steve murmured fondly.

**oOo**

Though the joke was tempting, Steve did _not_ make Tony take him out to an all-you-can-eat buffet or the most expensive restaurant in New York City. Instead, he chose one of the quaint, cozy little coffee shops he'd visited during his period of self-imposed isolation.

"Ooh, coffee shop date," Tony had said when Steve told him. "I like it. Very old school."

A few months ago, Steve would have thought Tony was mocking him with a comment like that. But even though he often felt like his nerves were on fire around Tony, his hackles were no longer up around the man; that reactionary defensiveness that had been so prevalent during the invasion had all but totally dissipated. He knew, now, that Tony was more likely to laugh with him than at him. It was pleasant knowledge to have, and not nearly as surprising as it used to be.

Besides, even Tony couldn't deny that Steve's humble coffee shop was a nice place. Shelves stuffed with donated books—beat-up paperbacks and hardcovers with cracked spines—lined the dark walls, and soft light filtered down from large round bulbs dangling from the vaulted ceiling. That distinctive brew smell permeated the air to the very corners, and the comforting sound of a drip machine was always going somewhere. The real draw of the place for Steve, though, was the expansive courtyard out back, shaded by trees and ferns on all sides and blooming with riotously colored flowers everywhere you looked. Groups of benches were arranged in intimate square formations, and tables with wicker chairs pushed under them reclined in the shadows of big striped umbrellas. It was at one of these tables that Steve and Tony now sat, each nursing a steaming coffee and tiny plates loaded with sandwiches and pastries.

"You're gonna eat me out of house and home, Cap," Tony joked, watching Steve dig into his third turkey and avocado on Italian.

Steve swallowed with some difficulty, the better to respond as soon as possible. "_You_ were the one who wanted to take me out."

"I should've remembered you have an appetite to rival Thor's," Tony said mournfully.

Steve smirked. "Hey, now, _that's_ not fair. If Thor were here, you'd be broke already."

Tony laughed, a flash of white teeth in the sun. "I don't doubt it. So, how'd you find this place? Was it when you were hiding from me?" he teased.

"I was _not_ hiding from you," Steve said with something like a pout. He totally had been. "Found this place… hm, maybe a week ago? I was just looking around for somewhere I'd never been. The courtyard caught my eye." He tipped his sandwich towards Tony and smiled. "Not to mention the menu," he teased back.

"Please _don't_ mention the menu, my poor wallet can't take it." Tony took an innocent bite of his jelly-slathered bagel as Steve snorted incredulously. He cast his gaze around the courtyard, taking in the artistic play of sunlight and shadow on the old cobblestones, the clusters of galaxy-purple and chalk-green carnations to either side of him. "Bet you came here to draw, didn't you?"

Steve froze just as he was about to take a sip of his coffee. He lowered the ceramic cup. "Yeah," he said softly. "How'd you know?"

"Wasn't hard to figure out," Tony breezed, leaning back so the front legs of his chair lifted off the ground. He looked into Steve's eyes and smiled crookedly, an almost boyish expression that quickly had Steve reciprocating. "You should show me some time."

"Show you what?"

"The drawings you did here." Surreptitiously, Tony stretched, his right hand brushing one of the green carnations. "Or, you know, your drawings in general. I'm sure you have lots of 'em."

Like that first day in the lab, Steve flushed pink at Tony's apparent interest in his art. The thought of actually _showing_ Tony some of the things he'd drawn flirted with the boundary between anxiety and anticipation. "Yeah," he said before he could think better of it. "I do. Maybe if I show you some of those, you could tell me a little about what you're always doing in your super-secret science lab."

Tony threw his head back and guffawed. Steve laughed, too—not because he thought anything was funny, just from listening to Tony do it. "You know, JARVIS told me you called it that, but I didn't believe him!" Tony exclaimed as his laughter died down. "Sure thing, America the Beautiful. I'll show you mine if you show me yours." With that, he gripped the stem of the flower he'd been playing with, tore it cleanly from its cyme, and presented it to Steve in one swift motion.

Steve was taken aback. He stared blankly at the carnation, eyes wide. Its mint-hued petals rippled outwards like choppy, wind-stirred waves on the ocean. It was strange and beautiful.

He looked at Tony.

"Is this how you accept all presents," Tony said quietly, "or is it just 'cause it's from me?"

Steve was abruptly gripped by regret: he wished he had worn that purple button-up, the one he'd avoided looking at for nearly two weeks. Maybe if he got another chance—if they went on another date…

He liked that idea, he realized. He liked that idea a lot.

"It's just because it's from you," he returned with equal softness, and he reached out and accepted the carnation. Their fingers brushed, and Steve felt electricity pass between them.

Tony smiled, a slow-growing expression that drew attention to his intense dark eyes glittering in the afternoon sun. Looking at that smile, Steve felt breathless. Sudden anxiety took him; he averted his eyes and played with the carnation's petals, smooth like silk.

"Tony?"

"Hm?"

"How did you know… I mean, how did you figure out… that…"

A quick glance at Tony's face revealed curiosity and concern. "Figure out what?"

Steve tried to swallow his nerves and only half succeeded. "Figure out that you liked guys, too." He felt like his face was stuck over a boiling pot; his stomach revolted and his extremities felt numb. He didn't dare look at Tony again.

Silence came over them for a few moments—a light, contemplative sort of silence. Finally, Tony said, "Jeez, that's tough to say, Cap. It's been such a big part of me for so long now. Honestly? I think it was Rhodey."

Steve's head snapped up at that. Liquid seeped onto the skin of his fingers and palm as his grip around the carnation's stem tightened. "Colonel Rhodes?"

Tony had a big grin on his face. "The very one. Met him at MIT. Kinda had a crush on him for a while. I didn't realize it at first—that it was a crush, I mean. I thought I just really liked the guy." He paused, then gave himself a conceding nod. "Well, I guess I _did_ really like the guy, if you know what I mean."

Steve had no idea what to do with this information. Maybe there were more important paths to pursue, but—"And… do you _still_ 'really like' him?"

"Nah, we're just good friends now. I don't think he even realized I had feelings for him. And in any case, it would never work out, dude's straight as an arrow."

Not too long ago this conversation would have seemed surreal to Steve. Now, though, it felt horribly real. Real and relatable. "How'd you realize it was a crush?"

"Compared it to how I'd felt about girls all my life. I crushed on one of my maids when I was a kid—though, come to think of it, she and my dad may have…" Tony shuddered. "Let's not go down that route. But there was the maid, a couple of girls in high school… the list goes on. When I realized I felt the same way about Rhodey as I did about them, it all just kind of clicked. Lots more things made sense then." He tilted his head thoughtfully, gazing at Steve. "Why d'you ask?" He sounded like he already knew the answer.

Still, Steve shook his head. "Just curious," he said unconvincingly. _This is the hill I die on_, he thought, and then felt incredibly guilty for some reason.

A moment passed in quiet. "It took me a while, you know," Tony said then. "To accept it. I wasted a shit ton of time thinking it wasn't real, that I'd have to 'pick a side' eventually. _And_ I felt alone." Steve had rarely seen Tony looking so serious. "Really alone. Like I was the only one in the world who felt this way, even though I knew I wasn't. It wasn't an instant 'hey, awesome, I'm bi' thing. It took time." He smiled cheekily. "But I figured it out eventually. And I _definitely_ have yet to 'pick a side'." He took a long swallow of his coffee, but he never broke eye contact.

Something that felt an awful lot like hope blossomed deep in Steve's chest. His instincts told him to tamp it down, rationalize it away, but he squashed them and listened, for once, to what he was feeling instead. Yeah, that was definitely hope. Hope and comfort.

"Is that okay?" he asked quietly. All of the confusion and struggle of the past several months was packed into those three words.

"It's okay," Tony said, and smiled. "It's definitely okay."

**oOo**

They did, in fact, go on more dates—many more dates. Each time, they went somewhere new, somewhere at least one of them had never been before: quirky restaurants with crazy menus; museums where one could bend the other's ear about art history or chemistry or astronomy, spending more time looking at each other than at any of the exhibits; once, at Tony's suggestion, a roller skating rink, where he spent the entire evening hollering with exhilaration as he clung for dear life to Steve, who smugly took to the activity like a natural. The days and nights passed by in a blissful whiz of color and laughter, and now Steve was thanking God the Avengers hadn't been called on lately for an entirely different reason.

Sometimes, still, it got to be too much, all the excitement and his unexpected new happiness, and Steve retreated into a lonely shell of contemplation and self-reflection. Tony let him be when he got like that—but never for too long. He always busted in eventually to drag Steve back out into the real world, and Steve, though terrified at times, never failed to end up feeling grateful for it.

The Avengers had recently marked the first anniversary of their inception as a team. A year after the Chitauri invasion, New York City was alive and kicking, spirit indomitably high not only in spite of everything that had happened, but specifically as a big "take that" to a certain would-be dictator and his destructive alien army. (Here it was that Steve felt a little of that age-old Brooklyn pride well up, and he had to fight to suppress a smile.) The Avengers themselves had celebrated—how else?—by going out for shawarma, and the combined appetites of Steve and Thor had made the restaurant owner very happy indeed.

Later, back at the tower, Tony had broken out a bottle of champagne that, according to him, he'd been saving just for the occasion. The sparkling golden bubbles took up residence in his eyes as he'd poured a flute for each teammate, quipping and congratulating, and he'd topped up Steve's glass with just a bit more than he'd given the others, winking at him slyly.

It wasn't often that all the Avengers could be in one place and actually _getting along_, but that night, camaraderie had lit the room in gold and champagne shades and laughter had filled up the empty spaces Steve sometimes forgot lurked within his heart.

For the first time in what felt like a long time, life was good.

**oOo**

As the end of May approached, Steve somewhat morosely keeping track of the days by the wilting of his carnation, he started thinking about what he should get Tony for his birthday. Tony being filthy rich and also a complete genius, Steve wasn't sure there was anything he _could_ give him that Tony couldn't just give himself.

According to Pepper, the party was going to be a subdued affair this year. Last year's birthday bash had been an unmitigated disaster—Steve didn't even want to _think_ about the cash Tony must have had to fork over to pay for the neighboring building's pool repairs. Not that any sum of money was enough to put a dent in the Stark wallet, which brought him back to his current dilemma of what he could possibly get for a billionaire's birthday.

For three days, Steve whipped up and promptly discarded ideas, mind racing and distracted. He hadn't given Tony a birthday present last year, and not only because he hadn't wanted to be anywhere even remotely close to the tower when Tony's loud-ass party, packed wall to wall with people like sardines in a can, had been going on. Retroactively, he felt really bad about that, but there was nothing to do about it now but make up for it with an extraordinary gift.

Finally, on the fourth day, it hit him.

**oOo**

Tony's birthday party was indeed a quiet affair—well, quiet by Tony's standards. It consisted of just the Avengers, Pepper, and Colonel Rhodes, gathered around an only slightly drunk Tony throughout the evening. They sang "Happy Birthday" to him in the most awful voices they could manage (Clint's was pretty damn awful, and Steve couldn't tell if that was more or less impressive given that he was Deaf), watched him _very_ closely as he cut the first slice of cake ("Birthday boy!" he exclaimed in celebration as he did it, and okay, maybe he was more than just _slightly_ drunk at that point, but so were most of them), all the normal birthday party things. If someone were here to watch them, they could probably believe the Avengers _weren't_ a bunch of dysfunctional idiots the rest of the time. (Scratch that, actually. Drunk pin-the-tail-on-the-Iron-Man: not the smartest idea they'd ever had. It was times like those Steve _really_ hated his position as perpetual designated driver.)

When it came time for presents and Steve had nothing to give, the others ribbed him and pushed him around a little, and Steve, his sheepish smile edged with a secret, was content to let the good-natured joking go. He winked furtively at Tony across the coffee table and mouthed, _Later._ It took a second to register in Tony's alcohol-addled brain, but after a moment he gave a goofy smile that made Steve's chest constrict and nodded.

"Later" turned out to be noon the next day, when Tony had finally slept off most of his hangover and post-celebration grumpiness. Steve, a bundle of nerves, summoned Tony to his floor of the tower, where in the living room stood an easel draped under a big white sheet.

"No way, you drew something for me?" Tony exclaimed. His wonder and excitement seemed completely genuine, and something about that made Steve feel warm.

"Painted you something, actually," he said. He gestured vaguely to the easel. "You, uh, you wanna see it?"

"Duh!"

"Okay." Steve took a deep breath, willing away the tremble in his fingertips. He'd worked really hard on this piece, and he felt a desperate need for Tony to like it—_really_ like it, not just say he did because it was a gift. "Here goes," he said mostly to himself, and he reached out and pulled the sheet from the easel with a silken whisper.

Tony's eyes got very big; Steve was abruptly reminded of a deer, pretty eyes dark and full of unmoving startlement. On the canvas was an abstract rendition of that first day in the lab: Tony, rendered in gentle yet intense shades of blue and pink and purple, the sole pillar of solidness in a landscape of floating ghosts, face etched deep with focus and alive in the glow of his creations. It was that day as Steve remembered it, ethereal and full of emotion, the true beginning of the past months' journey whose destination Steve didn't quite know yet. It was Tony at the center of a world—Steve's world, for as long as the scene took to see, for as long as it took to paint, and far beyond that.

Tony shook his head a little. "Steve…"

"Do you like it?" Steve asked quietly. He thought about mentioning how hard he'd worked on it, but Tony must have seen that; he _had_ to see that.

"Do I like…" Another shake of his head. "Steve," he said again, and Steve shivered. "It's… incredible."

Surprise and relief flooded Steve's chest. "You think so?"

"Jesus Christ, just look at it, it's…" Tony ran a hand over his mouth, seemingly at a loss for words for once. He locked eyes with Steve, and his gaze said everything his mouth couldn't:

_It's beautiful. I love it. Thank you._

Steve smiled, and now he did say, "I'm glad you like it. I worked really hard on it, you know. I kept worrying I was gonna screw it up."

"You could never," Tony said. Any other time it would have sounded like a joke. He was still staring at the painting, looking on the verge of emotional. Normally at this point, he'd be covering up his reaction with some of his patented sarcasm and flippancy, but now he wasn't even trying. In spite of his relief, Steve felt worry grip him.

"Tony?" he said.

"This is a big deal for you," Tony said suddenly. He looked to Steve. "Right? I mean, your paintings are… your drawings… they're like… they're like my inventions. They're a part of you, the way the stuff I build is a part of me. I don't show just anyone what I make. That's… personal. Private. You painted this for _me_ and…" He swallowed visibly. "Holy shit, Steve," he said articulately.

Steve laughed a little, still enjoying the sound of his name on Tony's lips. He wasn't as surprised by Tony's understanding as he would have thought he'd be. "You're right: it is a big deal. That's why I did it. I figured it was the best present I could give you."

"And you went all out for me, huh?" And there, at last, was that familiar smirk—not a mask to cover up how he was really feeling, but a genuine expression, illuminated with joy.

"Didn't wanna give you anything less."

"I would've let you off the hook for less, you know."

Steve shook his head slowly. "I'm not here to be let off the hook."

Tony held his gaze for a few moments, moments that seemed to stretch forever and yet end too quickly for Steve's liking. Then he looked back at the painting, and Steve could see his mouth try to quirk stubbornly into a bright grin that he just barely managed to suppress. He smiled, too, seeing that.

"This is one hell of a present, Stars and Stripes," Tony said faintly.

"Happy birthday."

**oOo**

The Pride March was in two weeks. _Two weeks_. Steve had never felt less prepared for anything in his life. Anxiety made his stomach ache more often than not, and the others had noticed. Bruce kept shooting him concerned glances over his lack of an appetite during mealtimes, and he'd heard Thor more than once struggling to keep his voice down as he asked the others what "ailed" him. Tony, for his part, was treating him just as glibly as he always had, seemingly oblivious, but Steve had noticed his conspicuously inconspicuous hovering and the silent question that lived in the shadows of his eyes: _We're still doing this thing, right?_

They _were_ doing this thing. They'd go to Pride and have a great time and it would be an amazing experience worth having. Steve wasn't about to back out, especially at the last minute, not after he'd made a promise to both Tony and himself. It was just… he'd started to wonder if attending the March together was going to be a date, and if it was, what that even _meant_. Countless nights Steve had lain awake thinking about Tony and Peggy and Bucky; countless dusky mornings he'd spent staring at his painting of the violets, at his carnation in its slim vase of water on the windowsill, wondering how the hell it all came together. He'd been staring at himself in a metaphorical mirror for a long time now, and he felt no closer to unraveling the mystery of his conflicted feelings at all. Tony made Steve _happy_, made every nerve ending in his body tingle with fire, made Steve feel like he was somehow complete, but _why_? And why did all of this remind him so strongly of the way he'd felt about Peggy? About Bucky?

He wasn't just nervous; he was frustrated, too. Something was pushing at him to acknowledge it, and Steve, like a coward, refused to look.

"Hey, soldier," came the sound of Natasha's voice. Steve turned, eyebrows up in surprise.

"Aren't you supposed to be in the med bay?" he said sternly. The Avengers had just returned home after a very unpleasant skirmish with Doom; there had been a few injuries, the most severe of which had been those of Natasha, who'd been briefly overwhelmed by an aggressive surge of Doombots.

"Was getting antsy cooped up down there," she breezed. "I've taken worse hits, Captain, believe me."

"No concussion?"

She rolled her eyes amusedly. "You are _such_ a mother hen. I didn't come up here to discuss me. It's you everyone is worried about."

A pause. "Oh, I've just got a lot on my mind lately."

"No kidding? I know what it's about. Tony told me."

Steve felt like a shock of ice water had been poured down his shirt. "Told you what?"

Natasha smirked and Steve knew she could see right through him. Damn her. "That you're coming to Pride with us," she said. Her smirk slid into something more authentic. "It'll be your first time. Pretty exciting."

"Yeah," Steve said with a slight laugh. "Uh, it sure is. Exciting."

Natasha tilted her head, assessing him with her unnervingly astute eyes. "Pretty nerve-wracking, too, right? I know. Last year was the first Pride March I ever went to. It's an experience. I think you'll really like it, for whatever that's worth."

Steve took a deep breath and shook his head a little bitterly. "I don't even know why I'm going," he muttered. Guilt bit him; he knew he was in denial.

Natasha probably knew it, too, but if she did she gave nothing away. "For the party," she suggested. "The atmosphere. Pride is high energy; it gets pretty wild. There's barely enough time to do and see everything. Like I said, I think you'll have fun. We all will."

"Nat?" She looked at him; Steve suddenly hoped what he was about to ask wasn't too personal an inquiry. "Why do you go to Pride?"

She smiled, and it was a surprisingly soft expression on her usually steely face. "I'm asexual," she said simply, openly. "It's kind of funny: I was trained to use sex as a weapon against marks, but I never really understood what the big deal was. For a long time I thought I was broken, like something was wrong with me. Clint helped me realize that wasn't the case."

"Oh," Steve said softly. He thought of Natasha asking Clint if it was okay to be the way she was, and his answering smile. _It's definitely okay._ "That's… really nice."

Her smile widened until it was nearly a grin. "It is," she agreed lightly. "Pride is also really nice. It's a good way to meet people you can relate to." She quirked her eyebrows at him, and Steve could almost hear her say, _Food for thought._ Damn her twice. In spite of himself, he returned the smile.

**oOo**

The rainbow was _everywhere_.

Snapping in flags in hundreds of hands on each side of the street; bouncing in layers of tulle fastened around dancers' waists; sparkling in a thousand pieces of jewelry around heads and wrists and ankles, sweat-glistened and gleaming in the sun; fluttering in the form of paper flowers strung about parade goers' necks, everywhere Steve looked. There was hardly an inch of New York that wasn't covered in the rainbow, it seemed, and he was draped in it, too: a lei hanging down to the center of his chest, scraping at the base of his neck; beads and chains that had been pushed onto his arms with glowing reverence by a merrymaker with multi-colored streaks in her hair and delight in her soul. It was suffocatingly hot in his purple button-up, but he couldn't have cared less if he'd tried, and to either side of him Tony and Natasha were also close to boiling, but they were both smiling in a way he'd rarely seen.

"Ooh, there they go, there they go!" Tony exclaimed, nearly hopping up and down in excitement. He waved crazily with both arms. "DYKES ON BIKES!"

A motorcycle revved; an elderly woman with cropped salt-and-pepper hair and a leather vest waved back, grinning sharply as she rode by.

"Fuckin' hell, I love those ladies!"

It was so _loud_; Steve could hardly hear himself think it was so loud, and it reminded him of a dozen bombs going off at once, all of the noise and none of the terror. Bright laughter filled his ears in every direction, a menagerie of indistinct voices, each one belonging to someone unbound by fear, by prejudice, by hesitance. The air was electrified; he could see the heat rising off the blacktop in waves—it itched at his skin and hair and he'd never felt more alive. He blushed bright red as they passed by two men kissing lovingly, but it was a happy blush and he smiled at the sight, thinking it sweet.

"Aha," Natasha said suddenly, "I have found my people. Well, boys—" she turned to walk backwards, smirking at them both, "—have fun."

"You, too, Nat," said Tony, and waved her off.

"Who'd she find?" Steve asked, tracking her as she wove through the crowd, towards a cluster of people striped in blacks and grays and whites and purples.

"The ace crowd. Or one of 'em, at any rate. Hey, we should go find the rest of the bisexual motherfuckers. Come on, I know where they usually march." Tony grabbed his hand and started pulling him against the flow of people. Their palms were sweat-slicked and slid against one another; without even thinking about it, Steve tightened his grip, and he felt Tony squeeze back as he glanced at Steve with a happy light in his eyes.

"Tony, what if I—"

"Oh, don't worry about it! You'll fit in just fine! Chin up, I see 'em!"

Steve could see them, too, a miniature sea of red and blue and purple. Signs were thrust above their heads: WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE and NOT A PHASE and BI AND PROUD. He read that last one again; something tightened his chest and throat, so much that he couldn't breathe for a moment, and he held onto Tony's hand so hard some part of him wondered if it hurt, but he couldn't let go. Wouldn't let go, no matter what.

" 'SUP, FUCKERS?" Tony addressed the group at large. Dozens of voices shouted back simultaneously; Steve couldn't understand any of them, but he saw the grins lighting up the faces painted in rainbow shades and knew the sentiments were good. "Say hello to my buddy Steve!" And now Steve could make out their words—his name on too many lips to count, lips attached to bodies attached to hands holding signs that said BISEXUAL PRIDE.

"Hi," he greeted back, but his voice was too quiet and got swallowed up by the cacophony.

He and Tony, still holding hands, turned around and started walking back the way they'd come, surrounded now by a thousand different shades of purple. Steve was abruptly gripped by the knowledge that he blended in, that a person looking at them from the outside wouldn't be able to tell him from anyone else in the group, and sudden fear warred with an equally sudden sense of _belonging_, like he was right where he'd always been meant to be, finally found when he hadn't even realized he'd been lost.

"Havin' fun, Steve-o?" Tony called. His cheeks were once more painted with stripes of pink and blue and purple; they glimmered with sweat and sunlight when he smiled. Steve realized in that moment that it could just be the two of them, in the dark and the cold, marching all by themselves, and as long as they were together he would still be having the time of his life.

"I am!"

"Good! Hey, I'm really glad you came with me today!"

The sincerity of it almost caught Steve off guard—almost. He smiled breathlessly at Tony, whose intense dark eyes flashed in the sun, and said, "Me, too!"

He lost track of time as they marched through the city, getting closer and closer to Christopher Street. Steve had done his homework: he knew it was at the Stonewall Inn that all of this had found its beginning, and his excitement ratcheted up with every step taken, his hand unbearably hot in Tony's grip but remaining exactly where it was. He could hardly see the people lining the sidewalks for all the rainbow flags they were waving about; from seemingly every window hung a bright and gaudy banner screaming NEW YORK CITY PRIDE. Music blared from somewhere a few streets over, full of blood and energy; dogs barked and people screamed with laughter and it all filled Steve's head until he felt as though he might burst. It was like he'd stepped into a whole new world, like New York had transformed into some fairytale land overnight without his notice, and something incredibly close to euphoria invigorated his steps even as he squinted in the harsh light of the afternoon sun.

"Captain America, right?" someone to his right said. Steve turned and saw a shirtless young man grinning up at him from behind a dark pair of shades.

"Yeah," he said, "hi!"

The man's grin widened. "You know, call me crazy, but I always knew you were one of us."

"Huh?" Steve looked around at their purple-hued group and shook his head. "O-oh, no, I'm not—I just, I'm here with a friend and—" He squeezed his "friend's" hand, and when Tony squeezed right back, Steve felt himself go vaguely lightheaded. "I, uh—"

"Hey, man, it's alright," the young man said genially. "No need to explain. I get it." He peered at Steve over the rims of his sunglasses and winked like the two of them were on the inside of some great joke. Then he fell back into marching, hollering and chattering to his fellows on either side of him.

Steve's throat felt tight and sticky all of a sudden.

"Hey, we're almost at the inn!" Tony said, snapping Steve back to awareness. He swallowed with difficulty.

"Tony?"

"Yeah?"

Steve steeled his nerves. "Is this a date?"

Tony looked at him pensively. Steve was suddenly, terribly aware of how perfectly their fingers fit together, like they were meant to be interlocked this way. "If you want it to be."

"If I want it to be, is that okay?"

A smile, dawning slow like the sun. "It's definitely okay!"

Steve nodded, more to himself than anyone else. "It's a date," he said.

"I'm glad. I like going on dates with you, Capsicle."

"Yeah." The noise around them had been drowned out by the sound of Tony's voice. "I like going on dates with you, too."

"Hey, speaking of dates, Cap," Tony said, "I kind of have a confession to make. You remember the date I went on the day I gave you that shirt?"

Steve tilted his head. "Yeah?" He had to shout to be heard over the crowd.

"Well, I actually didn't. Go on a date, I mean. There was no one. I just wanted to see how you'd react to the idea of me going out with a guy."

Steve was stunned into silence for a few moments. "You mean, see if I'd be okay with it?"

"Yep. Oh, and that shirt? It wasn't left behind by anyone. I bought it for you. Happy early birthday."

Steve looked down at himself, at the sun-shined purple silk that was honestly _way_ too hot against his shoulders and stomach, but he'd known as soon as he'd woken up this morning that it was what he'd wanted to wear to the parade. "So this really was a present, huh?" he mused, almost too softly for Tony to hear.

"Surprise!"

They marched over a rainbow-striped crosswalk at the corner of 7th Avenue and Christopher Street, and before Steve knew it they were standing in front of the Stonewall Inn. Dozens of flags clustered around the second-story windows like brilliantly colored flowers growing in sill gardens; the lit-up glass reflected long draping banners that said things like STOP THE HATE and WE ARE HERE. A cheer like none before went up through the crowd at the sight of the inn's brick walls; Steve's ears positively rang with it, and more clearly than any other he could hear Tony's voice, whooping excitedly. He squeezed; Tony squeezed back, and swung their clasped hands to and fro like an exuberant little kid.

"And there it is, Steve!" Tony yelled in exhilaration. "That's where it all began for us!"

_Us_, Steve thought. His entire world narrowed down to that one word. The rainbow-hued crowd; the carousers clad in all the shades of purple imaginable; Tony, with flags emblazoned on his cheeks and a fiery love for men and women in his heart; Peggy, Bucky, Lorraine, all stirring feelings within him, within each other, without care for how it may look to the rest of the world. _Us._ Steve thought of the endless nights without sleep, staring at the ceiling and thinking of boys' stuff; of all the dates he'd gone on with Tony, to cafes and coffee shops, museums and parks, time spent in euphoric revelry and unending laughter (it didn't matter where they went, as long as they went together); of the quartet of violets bowed as though in deference, and the Manhattan skyline at dusk, and the bruises on his knuckles from all the punching bags he'd whaled on in an effort to rid himself of his confusion and conflict; he thought of red and blue and purple things. He thought of his carnation, its physical form wilting as the days ticked by but its presence never fading from his mind, the significance and gift of it (_"Is this how you accept all presents, or is it just 'cause it's from me?"_). He thought of the hours he'd spent marching alongside Tony today, sweating near to death in his silky purple button-up but happier than he'd been in a long, long time, swept up in the energy and music and vibrancy of the crowd, celebrating along with them what it meant to be proud, to be _free_. He thought of the joy he'd experienced when he'd heard that DOMA had been struck down, and the vicious, fist-pumping pride of watching _Stonewall Uprising_ to prepare himself for this day. He thought of intense dark eyes and purple flowers and all the past months' denial, screaming at him what he'd already known deep down inside. He thought of _us_.

Oh.

"Oh," he said.

"Steve?" Tony had noticed him spacing out; he looked concerned, the sunlight illuminating his eyes from within. "You okay?"

Steve turned slowly to look at him. "Tony?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm bisexual."

Tony's eyebrows shot up; his mouth popped open in surprise, but the expression didn't last long before it faded into a gently amused smile. "Yeah, I know that, Cap. I've been trying to tell you for months."

Oh.

"Tony?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm bisexual and I'm okay with it."

The smile widened. "Well, that's good, Steve. You _should_ be okay with it. It's a beautiful thing, being able to love anybody."

Being able to love anybody. But Tony wasn't just anybody. Steve swallowed and willed himself to stop shaking.

"Tony?" he said tremulously.

"Yeah."

"I'm in love with you," and then he started to cry.

**oOo**

Warm sunlight filtered through the partially open slats on the window. It was midmorning, but Steve didn't want to get up just yet, not with Tony still so thoroughly unconscious under his arm. He raised his face to bask in the light and smiled a little, mind quiet. It would have been a classically domestic scene, if only the blaring honks of bumper-to-bumper traffic outside were the melodious chirping of songbirds instead. He snorted at himself, then glanced down in concern when Tony mumbled and shifted, burying his face deeper into Steve's side.

Barring any supervillain uprisings (which may very well happen, given their luck), Steve thought he'd drive out of the city today. Go somewhere he'd be a bit more likely to hear those songbirds. He could take a canvas and his paints out, into the hills and forests of Westchester County, and try his hand at another still life. He thought he was getting better at them. Tony said so, too.

"Nnnrrrr," Tony groaned, stretching lazily, keeping his eyes closed. "Steeeeve…"

"Good morning."

"Nn… morning."

"I love you," Steve said. He was still getting used to the feel of those words in his mouth, the taste of them; he said them every chance he got, wondering when he'd finally grow accustomed to their presence in his life. He figured it must annoy the hell out of Tony, but if that was the case, Tony didn't let on. Instead, he responded, sleepily this time around, with the same unhesitating words he gave back every time:

"Love you, too."

Steve smiled.

**oOo**

I will be the gladdest thing  
Under the sun!  
I will touch a hundred flowers  
And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds  
With quiet eyes,  
Watch the wind bow down the grass,  
And the grass rise.

And when the lights begin to show  
Up from the town,  
I will mark which must be mine,  
And then start down!

_Afternoon on a Hill_, Edna St. Vincent Millay

**The End**


End file.
